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US Senator and US Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton toured The Academy of Sciences new building under construction in Golden Gate Park Friday afternoon with San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom who today indorsed the senator pledging he will do everything he can to get her elected. August 010, 2007. Lance Iversen/The Chronicle (cq) SUBJECT 8/10/07,in SAN FRANCISCO. CA. MANDATORY CREDIT PHOTOG AND SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE/NO SALES MAGS OUT

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom will join Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on the presidential campaign trail when she comes to town on Tuesday - and Republicans couldn't be happier about it.

The way they see it, the more face time the pro-gay-marriage, pro-sanctuary-city, pro-gun-control mayor of the most leftist, liberal city in America spends with the Democratic front-runner, the better.

A recent news release distributed by the Republican National Committee to political reporters around the country lambasted Newsom as "Hillary's San Francisco Treat" and took a direct guilt-by-association swipe at Clinton by highlighting the mayor's signature last month on a local law to issue undocumented immigrants ID cards.

There's even a photo of the smiling pair together to document the day in August when Clinton came to town to collect Newsom's endorsement and crown him as one of her campaign's national co-chairs.

"Gavin Newsom symbolizes why Hillary Clinton's campaign is out of touch with voters in California and across the country," RNC spokesman Paul Lindsay said.

In the midst of a heated primary race for the Democratic nomination, it could be enough to send party heavy hitters fleeing from Newsom, just as some did months before the 2004 presidential election when he famously defied state law and allowed same-sex couples to get married.

Yet despite a high-profile sex scandal and his own admission of a drinking problem earlier this year, not to mention a slew of only-in-San Francisco measures and issues that conservative pundits have pounced on in recent months, Newsom remains a prized political catch for Clinton - at least for now.

Clinton will be in San Francisco Tuesday for a fundraiser with Newsom and billionaire Warren Buffett, and later this month the mayor plans to campaign for her in Iowa. He has held several private fundraisers for Clinton, including one aimed at lesbian and gay donors, and he has stood alongside her at a handful of local campaign functions. He has sent e-mails and made robo-calls on Clinton's behalf. During a rally in Oakland this fall, the New York senator at one point addressed the mayor as "Gov. Gavin Newsom."

Coveted endorsement

"He's one of the most important public figures in Northern California," said Chris Lehane, a veteran Democratic operative and former Clinton White House spokesman. "He's someone who is extraordinarily well respected by some constituency groups that are an important part of the mosaic of the Democratic Party, and someone who has shown the capacity to raise significant amounts of money. Put all those things together and there's a reason why all the three (leading) Democratic candidates wanted to meet with him and sought his endorsement."

California's presidential primary is Feb. 5. Political observers predict that through the primaries, Newsom's popularity - not just in San Francisco, where he was overwhelmingly re-elected last month, but around the state - will continue to woo West Coast voters to the polls.

But when it comes time for a Democratic nominee to hit the campaign trail in next year's general election, observers say the message will shift to "Gavin who?"

"San Francisco is a symbol to many conservatives and mainstream Americans of all that they think is wrong with secularism and liberalism," said UC Berkeley political science professor Bruce Cain. "When you get into a general election, there aren't too many places where Gavin can campaign and help Hillary."

Earlier this year, Newsom complained to the press that one of the leading Democratic contenders - he refused to name names - would not be photographed or even seen in the same room with him.

And now even he concedes that his own usefulness for Clinton will likely be short-lived if she wins her party's nomination.

"As a brand, (I) am more problematic," Newsom said. "I'm attached to this, that and this ... I get three days in a row on 'The O'Reilly Factor.' "

S.F.'s liberal reputation

Conservative talking heads like Bill O'Reilly have repeatedly blasted Newsom as the leader of a city that in recent months has made national headlines for considering a proposal to ban the Navy's Blue Angels from flying overhead and voting to oust JROTC programs in public high schools. An incident in which the city's Catholic archbishop delivered Communion during Sunday Mass to two men in heavy makeup dressed as nuns also gave the pundits fodder.

It's Newsom's reputation as the country's most liberal mayor that Republicans seem eager to capitalize on and use to turn centrist voters away from supporting Clinton.

"From her support for giving benefits to illegal immigrants to her reckless proposal for $778.6 billion in new government spending, Sen. Clinton continues to prove that she is in lockstep with the liberal fringe of her party," Lindsay said.

And it's not just Republicans at the national level hoping to hammer the point home.

Howard Epstein, vice chairman of the San Francisco Republican Party, said Newsom's stances on same-sex marriage and illegal immigration have hardly been controversial inside the city limits, "but get out of the city and into the heartland, and it's a very big deal."

"If Gavin becomes active in (Clinton's) campaign, people could say, 'What are you doing with that guy on your team?' " Epstein said.

California Democratic Party Chairman Art Torres said Republicans tried a similar "San Francisco values" strategy when Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, was elected speaker of the House last year, and it didn't work then.

"They said she was out of touch with American values, and guess what: She's more in touch with American values than they are," Torres said. "They've never been able to successfully attack her other than through hyperbole and fear."

The daily Rasmussen Reports tracking poll said Friday that 34 percent of Democrats nationwide support Clinton and 25 percent back Obama. And in such a contested race, Cain and other political observers say Clinton has to walk a fine line when it comes to her affiliations with controversial politicians like Newsom.

'Balancing act'

"Hillary has a real balancing act," he said. "On one hand, Hillary wants to go out on a limb (and reach out to liberal Democrats) ... but she doesn't want to get so far out that people go shopping for a new candidate."

While Newsom is a staunch proponent of same-sex marriage, Clinton opposes it. And as Newsom has backed ID cards for undocumented immigrants and supported San Francisco's stance as a sanctuary city, Clinton has waffled on the issue of illegal immigration, especially when it comes to giving driver's licenses to the undocumented.

For now, the Clinton campaign continues to not just embrace Newsom, but to lean on him heavily to rally the troops.

"He's a mayor of a very large city, and we are very grateful for the amount of time that he has been able to dedicate to the campaign," said Luis Vizcaino, spokesman for Clinton's California campaign.

Peter Ragone, a Newsom adviser, said he doubts the Clinton campaign will cast the mayor aside if she wins the Democratic nomination and campaigns in the general election next year.

"That would be like saying all the pro-life surrogates that the Republicans use in their primaries wouldn't be of use in the general election," he said.

But even Newsom is not so sure.

"In a primary I'm not so bad," he said. "After that, they'll probably say, 'Who is that guy in San Francisco?' "